Located in Port-au-Prince | Founded in February 2013 | 40 Youth served ages 15-25

“Your traditions are very important. It’s like you forget who you are if you don’t know your traditions. We are losing our traditions. They just don’t know their traditions. They like the hip hop – the dress – the talk – they are disconnected from their roots.”

Bois Gris

LI Teaching Artist, Boukman Eksperyans

Project Overview

LEAF International, Prosjekt Haiti (a Norwegian non-profit), and Boukman Eksperyans (a Haitian musical group) all partner together to implement and sustain the LI Haiti program. Twice a week, members of Boukman Eksperyans give drum and dance lessons to children in Project Haiti’s Youth Club, free of cost. These youth are extraordinary and dedicated. The long-term vision for the program is that they will eventually serve as music teachers for younger children. The youth perform in the community at least 4 times each year. Scroll to the bottom of the page to learn more about the Vision and Dream for this program.

The benefits of this program extend to the local community, including the drum maker commissioned to provide instruments and the women in the tailor shop Atelier Manman Troll (apart of Prosjekt Haiti), who make costumes for the youth.

Impact

Through the project, students gain:

Classes in drumming- drums are sacred in Haitian culture

Traditional dance classes

Reconnecting to local traditions

The opportunity to perform in the community

A one-mic recording studio

Meet the Teaching Artists

For over 30 years, Boukman Eksperyans has been a powerful social voice for Haitians, and the musicians that make up the group Boukman Eksperyans have been active change agents in their community for decades. They embody and preserve Haitian traditions with grace and dedication. For years, they have dreamed of starting a cultural program with youth, and with the collaboration of LEAF International and Prosjekt Haiti, that dream is now a reality. The four main members of the Boukman Eksperyans serve as Teaching Artists for our Haiti program, including: Manze’ (Mimerose) Beaubrun, Lolo (Theodore) Beaubrun, Bois Gris “Hans Dominique,” Laura Beaubrun, and her husband Paul, Johanne Dejean. The primary teachers are Johanne Dejean, teaching dance, and Bois Gris, teaching Haitian drumming traditions.

To see Boukman Eksperyans in action, check out their 2013 Carnival Song “Piout Piout”

Meet the Students

There are 40 young people in the program, ages 15-25. The students live nearby and walk to the program. If you met these students, you would never sense the real struggles of their lives. The youth come from poor backgrounds and their parents–many of whom cannot find work–struggle to find food for the families. Despite their circumstances, they are vibrant, talented, self-taught, driven, intelligent, kind, and they have dreams. This program allows these individuals to have an outlet in which to express themselves in an uplifting and constructive manner, and the students’ families are extremely happy about the creation of the program.

When asked what people from outside Haiti should know about the country, student Samual Ambriose said, “Haitians work hard, are talented, and are fun. Even amidst misery they can laugh.”

The Program in Action!

LI Haiti Performs at May LEAF 2014

Long Term Vision

The long-term vision of the LEAF International Haiti program is to not only provide the opportunity for students to become engaged in their local cultural traditions, but to have the opportunity to develop their skills far enough to become cultural professionals. To this end, LEAF International, in collaboration with Prosjekt Haiti, is committed to working with the same group of youth so that they may progress over time. Despite many of the backgrounds from where they come, these students have big dreams for their futures, and the determination to make those dreams come true. By bringing them to perform at LEAF Festival in May of 2014, LEAF International has begun the process of helping these students realize their dreams. By becoming international performers, many of these students are now receiving paid gigs for their performances in traditional Haitian dance and drumming. This coming December, the youth group is putting on their own arts festival, where they will have the opportunity to showcase their wide array of talents–from dance and drumming to photography and theater–to their parents and their community. The next step is organizing their own mini-LEAF Festival that they will put on in Haiti in Spring of 2016. This festival will focus on celebrating Haitian culture and all it has to offer, while giving these young people an opportunity to develop into cultural professionals.

Join us on this incredible journey! Get involved today.

SUPPORT US

From music instruments to child sponsorships, our people-centered programs depend on generous givers like you to grow and thrive. Donate today! 100% of your gift goes directly to support music and arts education programs in the country of your choosing.

Our Partners

Prosjekt Haiti is an amazing community-driven organization. A model of service, the organization’s goal is to contribute to a better future for the people associated with their projects, and it continues to grow towards meeting the needs of families in Haiti. The program fosters leadership and has multi-generational community members, and has been creating a thriving supportive community in Port-au-Prince since 2000. Prosjekt Haiti believes that the best way of cultivating meaningful change is to provide people with knowledge and skills that enable them to improve their own situation. Prosjekt Haiti therefore focuses on education, capacity building and value creation.

Boukman Eksperyans is more than just a Grammy-nominated, Haitian-born band, but a platform for social change for their fellow Haitians. As a band, their music is a worldly, high-energy fusion of traditional Haitian and Caribbean rhythms with rock and reggae. As individuals, they are activists, and serve as the teaching artists for Haiti’s LEAF International and Prosjekt Haiti program.Content goes here

City Mac of Asheville has provided One Mic studio gifts in honor of Ben Gradison.

Want to learn more about our program in Haiti? Click the link below to download the 2013 site report with detailed descriptions of the program from the LEAF International team!

In Memory of Sergot Junior Lamour

Junior performing at LEAF Festival

In remembrance and in honor of one of the LEAF International Haiti students, who left this world early as he was hit by a car on his way to school. Junior, a LEAF International & Project Haiti drummer extraordinaire, exemplified the LEAF mission in the way he lived his life.

“‘My teacher always taught me to put a lot of energy into my music,’ Junior said reflecting on his drumming. ‘You have to put your soul into it. Your heart into it!’”

Junior lived with sweet kindness and a full heart. In May 2014, he captivated us all at LEAF with his beautiful smile and Haitian spirit at LEAF Festival. He will forever be in our hearts, and will continue to inspire the work that LEAF International does.

Haitian Culture and Community

Haiti is a state in the Caribbean and is situated on the same island as the Dominican Republic, Hispaniola. The Creole word for Haiti is “Ayiti” and means “the country with high mountains”. Haiti was the first free, black republic in the world following a successful slave revolt in 1804, ridding the country of the French colonists. The Capital of Haiti is Port-au-Prince. Both Creole and French are spoken in Haiti. The population is a little less than 10 million, and approximately 2.3 million people live in the capital. 80% of Haitians are Catholic, 16% are Protestant, 3% report as “other,” and half of the population also practices Vodou. According to 2003 data, 80% of the population is below poverty level. Haiti was tragically devasted by a major earthquake in 2010.